It is spring and the government’s allergy to democracy hit hard (Zeitgeist 18.)

Table of Contents:

1. April – Slovak season of dumb ways to change electoral system
2. Public broadcaster RTVS is getting rid of critics
3. EU Parliament urges European Commission to take action against Slovakia
4. Political Party Democrats and their Pyrrhic victory
5. President Pellegrini accused of cheating in the electoral campaign
6. Another PM Fico’s accusations bite the dust
7. It might have been Russian electoral meddling at the end of the day
8. PM Fico calling off his legislative attempt to fire whistleblowers who were investigating his party affiliates
9. Selective approach of Judicial Council in defending judges under attacks

The European Parliament escalated pressure on Bratislava by voting to urge the Commission to launch proceedings that could freeze EU funds over rule-of-law concerns. The opposition party Demokrati scored a partial victory, forcing a July referendum after gathering almost 400,000 signatures, but President Pellegrini stripped out the key early-election question before calling it.

Pellegrini also faced a suspicion of alleged paid influencer endorsements during his 2024 presidential campaign, while Fico’s claims of British election interference collapsed entirely when police closed the probe with no case to answer. At the same time, a leaked transcript emerged suggesting it was Fico’s own coalition that had sought Russian help to swing the 2020 election.

PM Fico was further forced into a U-turn on his law, dismantling the Whistleblower Protection Office, and the Judicial Council drew sharp criticism for staying silent while Fico and his right-hand man filed a criminal complaint against a sitting judge.

1. April – Slovak season of dumb ways to change electoral system

In April, the Slovak parliament was filled with bills proposing changes to the electoral system. Three separate rules are aiming for prolonging the terms from 4 to 5 years in municipalities, one of them going even further and proposes to prolong the term of the parliament as well. Simultaneously, the coalition MPs want to make voting from abroad much harder. They are proposing to abolish postal voting for citizens abroad, forcing roughly 60,000 voters to travel to one of Slovakia’s 93 diplomatic missions or fly home entirely just to cast a ballot in the parliamentary election. The political calculation behind the move is barely hidden. In the 2023 election, opposition party Progressive Slovakia received over 61% of the diaspora vote, and one coalition MP openly admitted on state television that switching to embassy voting would make results “a little more balanced.”

The government’s argument for the change is that postal voting undermines the secrecy and directness of the vote. It is estimated that 300,000 to 350,000 Slovaks are living abroad. The cynicism of the proposal is deepened by the fact that Fico’s own 2023 government program pledged to expand postal voting to presidential elections. The coalition’s path is, however, part of negotiating; Hlas has wavered, SNS is demanding a separate change to preferential vote thresholds as the price of his support, and parliamentary debates have already descended into chaos. Civil society organizations have responded with a petition to stop this bill.

2. Public broadcaster RTVS is getting rid of critics

Slovakia’s public broadcaster STVR has a new council chief, but the appointment has raised serious questions about whether the body is overseeing a broadcaster. Peter Benčurík, a senior official at the Culture Ministry, was elected chair of the STVR Board. The problem is glaring: both Benčurík and the board’s deputy chair, Lukáš Machala, are Culture Ministry insiders who ultimately answer to Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová. Such an arrangement may violate the EU’s Media Freedom Act, which explicitly requires member states to protect the independence of public broadcaster governance.

The lack of independence of the Slovak broadcaster is already under scrutiny from the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the European Federation of Journalists. The controversy arrives at a turbulent moment for STVR more broadly, as the broadcaster faces a backlash from artists and journalists over decisions not to air major cultural events like the Radio head Awards, prompting prominent actors to refuse future cooperation. Moreover, the public broadcaster has taken a significant step toward becoming a government mouthpiece, with a leaked list revealing that 60 employees, 38 of them editorial and creative staff, were set to be laid off.

The cuts are being carried out under director Martina Flašíková, who was installed in the role in May 2025, and they disproportionately target experienced journalists who were vocal critics of the government’s 2024 decision to dissolve the independent public broadcaster RTVS and replace it with STVR. Among those facing dismissal are all five leaders of the strike committee that emerged in 2024 to protest that very transformation, making the layoffs look less like austerity and more like a deliberate purge of dissent. 

3. EU Parliament urges European Commission to take action against Slovakia

The European Parliament has sent a stark political warning to Slovakia, voting 418 to 207 to urge the European Commission to launch conditionality proceedings that could result in the suspension of EU funds for Slovakia over rule-of-law concerns under Prime Minister Robert Fico. The resolution was driven by growing alarm that Slovakia is following Hungary’s trajectory, with German Greens MEP Daniel Freund, the rapporteur, stating that “we must make sure Fico doesn’t become a new Orbán.” MEPs pointed to a string of troubling developments under Fico’s government, including the abolition of Slovakia’s specialized anti-corruption bodies, the National Criminal Agency and the Special Prosecutor’s Office, and moves to overhaul the whistleblower protection authority.

The resolution also flags a prior reduction of €1.225 million in EU support following a recommendation by OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud office, as well as suspected fraud involving EU-funded pensions linked to government allies. The Parliament’s vote is a political signal rather than a binding order, the Commission retains discretion over whether and how to act, and any actual financial suspension would still require approval by a qualified majority of EU member states in the Council. Nevertheless, the vote marks a significant escalation in Brussels’ scrutiny of democratic backsliding in Bratislava.

4. Political Party Democrats and their Pyrrhic victory

Extra-parliamentary party Demokrati submitted almost 400,000 signatures under a petition for the early end of the term of the current parliament. Slovak President Peter Pellegrini has called a referendum for July 4th, but stripped out the most politically charged question, the one that could have triggered early elections, leaving voters with only two of the original three proposed questions on the ballot.

Pellegrini ruled the early-election question unconstitutional without referring it to the Constitutional Court, arguing that existing case law, including a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling, clearly prohibits using referendums to shorten a parliamentary term unless the constitution explicitly permits it, which it currently does not. The two questions that will go to voters are, first, to scrap the prime minister’s lifetime pension, and second, to restore the Special Prosecutor’s Office and the National Crime Agency, both dismantled by the current government in 2024.

Demokrati leader Jaroslav Naď has criticized both the removal of the early-election question and the July timing, arguing that a summer vote during the holiday season risks suppressing turnout, a serious concern given that Slovak referendums require over 50% voter participation to be valid. While Demokrati succeeded in getting visible, the referendum on the PM’s pension and the revival of closed institutions may turn against them as an expensive and meaningless vote.

5. President Pellegrini accused of cheating in the electoral campaign

A Slovak police investigation into the financing of President Peter Pellegrini’s 2024 presidential campaign has gained significant momentum after an influencer at the heart of the story inadvertently confirmed that money was being offered for political endorsements, the very thing Pellegrini has consistently denied. The story centers on influencer Filip Jovanovič ,who told police in January 2026 that fellow influencer Zuzana Strausz Plačková had offered him around €30,000 to post an Instagram story backing Pellegrini during the campaign, an offer he says he rejected because he did not want to be paid for a political opinion.

Plačková’s public response backfired spectacularly: rather than shutting down the story, she confirmed that money was indeed discussed; she simply disputed the amount. However, Pellegrini enjoys broad presidential immunity while in office, meaning the near-term damage is more likely to be political than legal. Nevertheless, the affair reinforces a persistent narrative around his 2024 campaign that the President’s transparent account was not that transparent at all.

6. Another PM Fico’s accusations bite the dust

A Slovak police investigation into Prime Minister Robert Fico’s claims of British interference in the 2023 parliamentary election has been quietly closed after eight months, with no case to answer. PM had made the allegations loudly and publicly in July 2024, claiming that the UK Foreign Office had funded Slovak journalists and influencers through an agency to damage his SMER party.

The claims were based on a report by Declassified UK, which revealed that the UK Foreign Office had funded influencers across central and eastern Europe through a network called Zinc Network, but the report’s actual focus was on encouraging young people to participate in democratic life, not on backing any specific political party. The UK Foreign Office rejected Fico’s characterization in its entirety. Despite the collapse of any evidentiary basis, the government had already used the interference claims to push through legislation criminalizing foreign election interference, a law that is now under review by the Constitutional Court.

7. It might have been Russian electoral meddling at the end of the day

A released unredacted transcript of a phone call between Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has provided some of the strongest evidence yet that Slovakia’s then-Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, now the country’s president, sought Russian assistance to boost his party’s chances in the February 2020 parliamentary election.

The call, intercepted by a European intelligence service and published in full by Hungarian investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, reveals Szijjártó telling Lavrov about the importance of the then-government in Slovakia staying in power, and relaying Pellegrini’s personal request for a meeting with the Russian prime minister. Three days before the election, Pellegrini duly traveled to Moscow and met Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The irony is glaring: Fico’s government has repeatedly invoked alleged foreign interference in Slovak elections as justification for criminal law amendments, while this evidence suggests it was his own coalition that was actively seeking outside manipulation of the democratic process. 

8. PM Fico calling off his legislative attempt to fire whistleblowers who were investigating his party affiliates

Slovakia’s Fico government has made a  U-turn, scrapping its own law abolishing the Whistleblower Protection Office after the European Commission froze a payment from Slovakia’s Recovery and Resilience Plan over concerns about the reform. The reversal is all the more remarkable given the lengths to which the coalition had gone to push the legislation through.

The bill was approved at an extraordinary Saturday cabinet meeting, rushed through parliament in two weeks, passed during a night session that overrode a presidential veto, and survived criticism from the general prosecutor, the ombudsman, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, and civil society organizations. The Constitutional Court had already suspended the law in December.

Despite abandoning the law, both Fico and Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok insist it was sound policy, with Fico dismissing it as a “legislative corpse” that now merely “complicates our lives,” rather than acknowledging any wrongdoing. Critics had consistently warned that dismantling the office would jeopardise EU recovery funds, since the institution is an explicit condition for accessing that money.

9. Selective approach of Judicial Council in defending judges under attacks

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and MP Tibor Gašpar launched a public attack on judge Pamela Záleská, going so far as to proudly announce they had personally filed a criminal complaint against her. Despite having no direct involvement in the case she was presiding over, and presenting not a single piece of evidence to support their serious accusations. The Supreme Court was quick to respond, reminding government representatives that a judicial decision being overturned on appeal does not automatically mean the judges who made it committed a crime, and drawing a clear line between legitimate criticism of court rulings and using public attacks as a tool of political pressure. 

Yet the body that should be most vocal in defending judicial independence, the Judicial Council, Slovakia’s constitutional guardian of judicial legitimacy, has remained completely silent. The Judicial Council’s chair claimed at a session held shortly after Fico’s press conference that she had not noticed any attacks. What makes the silence even more glaring is the Judicial Council’s track record: it previously responded swiftly to critical comments made by a theatre actor and a newspaper editor-in-chief about judicial decisions, yet has said nothing when the country’s most powerful politician filed a criminal complaint against a sitting judge without evidence.

The contrast reveals a troubling pattern of selective attention. Taken together, the episode raises serious questions about whether Slovakia’s institutional safeguards for judicial independence are functioning as designed or whether the Judicial Council’s silence amounts to a tacit acceptance of political interference in the courts.